Published on Wednesday, July 14, 2010
by Juan Castro Olivera
MIAMI, USA (AFP) -- Cuba's decision to release 52 political prisoners
Havana does not signal any shift in the communist regime's hold over the
island, US analysts said Tuesday.
Havana's release of seven of the dissidents to Spain Monday, ahead of
four more expected transfers in the coming days, came as former Cuba
leader Fidel Castro's gave his first television interview in almost a
year, a move that analysts said was to distract the population of the
one-party state.
Castro's appearance "contradicts those who thought there might be a
change underway in Cuba, or a move towards closer, better relations with
the United States," Jaime Suchlicki, director of the Institute for Cuban
and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami, told AFP.
"Nothing has changed in Cuba" following the dissidents' release, he
said, adding that while President Raul Castro was handling day-to-day
leadership in the country, "the important decisions, especially in
foreign policy" were still being made in consultation with his older
brother, Fidel.
Some observers have seen the releases as signalling a shift away from
decades of hardline policy by Fidel and Raul, but critics have been
quick to shoot down such a possibility.
The previous large-scale release of prisoners came in 1998, following a
visit by then-pope John Paul II, with 300 dissidents spared jail time by
a presidential pardon. Experts point out that that move was not followed
by any large-scale lifting of oppressive measures since then, as hoped
at the time.
The releases to Spain "do not imply a change in the repressive regime,"
insisted Angel De Fana, Miami-based director of the group Plantados of
former Cuban political prisoners.
"These people are forced to leave because if they wanted to stay in
Cuba, they would remain under a totalitarian regime and go back to being
incarcerated."
The purpose of Fidel's TV appearance, according to Cuba expert Uva de
Aragon at Florida International University, "was to distract attention
from the release of the political prisoners."
After previous releases of dissidents, noted de Aragon, an associate
director at Florida's Cuban Research Institute, "nothing changed, as
other prisoners are taken."
Cuba agreed to gradually free 52 political prisoners -- the biggest
gesture of its kind in a decade -- in a surprise deal between the Roman
Catholic Church after a hunger strike to near-death by dissident
Guillermo Farinas.
And according to the Cuban Human Rights and National Reconciliation
Commission, even after all the 52 inmates are released, there will still
be 115 political prisoners held in Cuba, the only one-party Communist
system in the Americas, where censorship is enforced with an iron fist.
US officials have said the release of political prisoners is a necessary
step before the two governments can improve their often strained
relations, with a decades-long US trade embargo still in place.
The Cuban government, however, which consistently skirts the issue in
its official media outlets, still denies holding any political
prisoners, saying they are mercenaries in the pay of the United States.
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